Lawrence Bender on ‘Countdown to Zero’

The documentary “Countdown to Zero,” recently released on DVD and Blu-ray, is a stark look at the issue of nuclear proliferation and the consequences of what would happen if a nuclear device was launched in today’s political climate. Written and directed by Lucy Walker (“Waste Land”), the film features the opinions of former President Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair, and was produced by Lawrence Bender, who when not making socially-conscious documentaries like “Countdown” and 2006′s “An Inconvenient Truth,” is producing action films with Quentin Tarantino.

Bender recently took some time off from shooting “Safe,” an action film starring Jason Statham, to speak to us about “Countdown to Zero.”

The Wall Street Journal: You’re currently producing an action film with Jason Statham while promoting “Countdown,” a serious documentary about nuclear proliferation. How do you balance what projects you choose to take on?

Lawrence Bender: It’s pretty funny because I just came from a meeting with 30 stunt guys about staging a massive fight in hotel. How do I balance talking about fights and nuclear proliferation? Here’s the thing: I love both. Making movies is my profession. I like doing it a lot. But it’s been ingrained in me, from my parents and others, this idea of making a difference in the world. I had one of those light bulb “a ha” moments while screening “Good Will Hunting” in Camp David in 1998 — Madeleine Albright and the Clintons were there, and I just became really inspired by all of these amazing people. I left the screening asking myself what I could do. I started hosting fundraisers at my house for various charitable organizations and politicians, things of that nature.

When I saw Al Gore do his slide show on global warming, that’s when I had my nutty idea that this could be a movie and that’s when it became clear to me that I could use my profession to make a change, in a way that’s unique to me. When you came out of that slide show, everyone wanted to know what they could do. As a filmmaker, I realized I could make a movie about it. That was such a high moment of my life — not just making the movie, but also working with Al and doing a socially conscious project.

With all the issues facing the world today, how do you decide which causes to take up on your documentaries.

After “An Inconvenient Truth” came out, a lot of people came to me with their causes, and there are a lot — water, poverty, and so many many more. What is said to myself was, ‘What can I do with my limited time that makes the biggest impact and takes on the biggest issues?’. That’s when Matt Brown called and it hit me. If I can move the dial a millimeter on this issue [of nuclear proliferation], these are the issues that are catastrophic and can destroy lives. And documentaries are so hard to make — they take a lot of time and are very intense, so you do what you can in terms of balance.

A number of high-ranking officials and world leaders sat down for you and Lucy. Was Pervez Musharraf the hardest to reach?

He was certainly one of the hardest to lock down, because he was in Pakistan. It’s not that hard to get into Pakistan, but to get into Pakistan to talk to him was difficult. It’s a crazy story — we were never doing undercover work; our lives weren’t in danger. But in this case, I was leaving to talk to Quentin Tarantino about “Inglourious Basterds” when finally, through a friend, we heard we were able to get our visas cleared to go to Abu Dhabi. I asked him if he was cool if met him in 36 hours because I was going to Islamabad, he said fine, and at midnight, I was about to board this flight with Lucy and our cinematographer and our line producer when I get this phone call that we’re not getting our visa approved. And the craziest part was that there are two hotels you can stay at in Islamabad, one being the Marriott, which is the most fortified and where most Westerners stay. But our Pakistani ‘fixer’ told us to switch hotels, and later on, the hotel was blown up. We ended up getting Musharraf, but it was in London.

The documentary was developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, which was founded by Jeff Skoll. What is your working relationship with him like?

Jeff is an extraordinary man — we hang out socially and work together professionally. But his secret weapon is actually Diane Weyermann, runs the doc division at Participant. She really oversees the entire process and was my real partner in all of this.

How long will Global Zero, the social action campaign tied to “Countdown to Zero”, remain active?

This is something that’s going to go on for quite some time. The movie is part of the campaign, and the campaign is not advocacy for the movie. The movement has had some amazing moments — we’ve screened the movie at CIA headquarters and met with Director Leon Panetta; we screened at the UN with Ban Ki-moon; we’ve also screened in places like Mumbai and Delhi and in Kazakhstan.

Are you still looking into doing a documentary with Louis Psihoyos, the director of “The Cove”?

We’re talking abou it and I’m very interested in it. He’s obviously very talented. But to be honest, I need to take a moment away from documentaries. It’s such a long, hard process, I need some breathing room before I start up again.